


small steps

by makiyakinabe



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, ToT: Monster Mash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 07:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12476792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makiyakinabe/pseuds/makiyakinabe
Summary: Or, how the one we came to know as Death grew a pair of legs.





	small steps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eluvia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eluvia/gifts).



Once there was, and there was not, a most curious entity made of aught but shadow. They came into being for no other purpose than to stand in opposition of their twin, and just as Light was ruled over by that most wondrous entity bathed in aught but radiance, so was Darkness their dominion. If Light was a bud unfurling into flower, Darkness was the decay that ate away at the flower until naught was left but a shell of its former glory. If Light was the colour that rose to the cheeks of an urchin brought into shelter from the cold, so was Darkness the pallor that set into the face of a man on his bed who breathed his last.

They who were lord over Darkness took their duties most seriously. It mattered not whether one were a grandparent who breathed their last on their deathbed, surrounded by loved ones, or a king felled by enemy hands in the midst of war. There was not a single being who did not come into the world without the blessing of they who were lord over Light, and just as all were marked by Light, so were all by Darkness; and so all beings were returned to Darkness, whether sooner or later.

Not all accepted their lot and came quietly, however. There were many who refused to depart from the world of Light, objecting to the prospect of walking alongside an entity so curious as they who lorded over Darkness.

The first of such obstinate beings were a shrewd man of five and ninety. So enthralled were he by Light that for all his life, that he had thought of naught but how to tarry and bask in Light's radiance for as long as was possible—such had been his personality whilst alive, and so was it now, even after his spirit had left the vessel which could house him no longer.

"I shan't do it," cried the man. "I shan't let my opinion be swayed even for a being such as yourself, o lord Darkness. For wherefore ought I come to you, when I had been a child blessed by aught but Light?"

"You cannot remain in Light's domain forever," said the entity known as Darkness, who was aught but responsible.

"Nevertheless. _You_ , my lord, cannot compel me to walk freely alongside a being so grotesque—indeed, how ought I walk alongside you at all, my lord, when you have not legs with which to carry out the task?"

"Legs," repeated Darkness. There was a hint of pensiveness in their voice.

The man, seeing the opportunity dangled before his eyes, snatched it at once. "Yes, my lord. Legs. Appendages with which to walk—and which come hand in hand with feet," he added quickly, as it occurred to him that this was a fact which Darkness, being made without any limbs at all, may well neglect to take into consideration.

"Very well," said Darkness, and grew a pair of legs (and feet). "Let us be off—"

"But how ought we get anywhere at all, o lord Darkness," interrupted the man, "when these legs of yours are made entirely of _cloth?_ "

Darkness looked down at their legs, which they had indeed fashioned of aught but cloth, but found no wrong in them. "Are these legs not the same as your own?" they asked, bemused.

The man spluttered and launched forthwith an elaborate account on the subject of legs, puncturing every point with a large wave of the arm. Darkness knew not why the man was making such a fuss over human appendage, but they changed their legs nonetheless. First to a pair made of metal, then cotton, then wood—and finally, after the man declared enough was enough and allowed for a close inspection of his own legs—a pair made of flesh, sinew and bone.

And off man and Darkness walked, side by side, with the man carrying a piece of Light with him, so uproarious was his laughter.


End file.
